Here’s one to get people excited

If Saddam was good for anything in Iraq, it was to keep three completely different groups under control. Ever since his removal, despite several successful elections, the Shia and Sunni that make up most of Iraq have been hard at work trying to kill each other while the Kurds, the third party in the group, have been quite bystanders thanks to the autonomous region they call home in the north.

These daily killings have raised the talk of an imminent civil war to the horror of most of the world and glee to most of the Democratic Party. I’ll raise the question though, being the gutsy guy in the group, would a civil war be all that bad? Now before those who have a hard time having a lively debate start calling me a warmonger, recognize I’m simply bringing up the topic for the sake of discussion.

If we look at past civil wars, which there have been several dozen, some have been disasters or beginnings of much larger conflicts like the Spanish Civil War was to World War II. However there have been others like the American Civil War that has unified a nation. Prior to the American Civil War, the United States was just that, a group of states that didn’t consider themselves a nation but instead a union of states who felt no allegiance to the constitution or underlying country. It wasn’t until after the North’s decisive victory did the idea of the U.S. being a nation come to be, with the Spanish American War acting as the event that finally glued all the states together.

I see the biggest problem with Iraq currently being that the parties involved have no allegiance to the country itself, the way the South had no allegiance to America. A civil war could be the event that brings these groups together because it appears elections haven’t been working. The way things have been progressing it appears that someone is going to have to beat these groups into submission, whether it be by each other or us. If we don’t let them fight it out and we can’t get things under control, then maybe letting each group secede to form their own country might be the only other option.